Freedom
by Anon1000
Summary: A 'Lets-Time-Travel-and-Change-Everything'  Not what you expect. Not SasuSaku
1. Chapter 1

**Freedom**

by Anonymous

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><p>Sasuke idly played with kunai, impatiently waiting for class to begin. He was becoming annoyed; Iruka-sensei, for whatever reason, was late. The girls behind him were using the opportunity to gossip, which wouldn't be so bad if he wasn't their subject of conversation. They had become loud and were getting impossible to ignore.<p>

He didn't know what he was doing that drew the attention of so many girls in the academy, but it really had to stop. His training was the only thing that mattered at this point and he simply didn't have time to dally with the fairer sex. Perhaps when his brother was dead he could worry about courting one of them to find a worthy wife, but certainly not while Itachi was still out there.

As it was, they were just annoying. Pestering him with gifts, requests for dates... The constant violation of his solitude were becoming very trying. He kept them at arms length, doing his best to respond to them with patience and dignity, hoping one day they would take the hint and realize that the cold indifference he responded with was exactly that.

He glanced over at Sakura, the pretty pink-haired girl. It wasn't saying much, but of all the girls giggling and squabbling about him, he disliked her the least. She was... shyer then the rest, and thus, quieter. Still a bother, but less so.

His eyes met hers for a moment, and she returned a cold, hateful glare.

He turned away, flabbergasted. What had happened? Up until yesterday, she had nothing but sunny smiles and crimson blushes where he was concerned. He wondered... Had she taken the hint? Did she figure out he didn't give a damn for any of them? If that was the case, then good for her. His respect had gone up for her a tiny notch.

He put the thoughts aside when Iruka arrived, deciding he would revisit after class. Perhaps he would even ask her. He wasn't sure.

He didn't have much time to make decision, however, as Sakura approached when class was complete. A little curious, he decided he would hear her out.

She looked troubled, as if she was struggling with herself to find the correct words. He waited patiently, and when the last of the their classmates filtered out, she pulled him close and moved her mouth to his ear.

"Meet me behind Ichiraku Ramen at midnight," she whispered sharply. "I have information regarding Itachi."

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><p>He didn't know how she knew about Itachi, or what information she promised, but it better be damn good. Discussion of brother was not something he shared in willingly, as it was his mission and his ambition alone. He wouldn't allow anyone else to interfere with it.<p>

He doubted the girl she actually had anything substantial to offer, and his mind began to search for alternative reasons she could be doing this. Perhaps he was wrong earlier when he assumed the girl had taken the hint. She had been desperate for his attention before, and she might be feigning information as a means to getting it.

This wouldn't do. He would not stand for some love-struck child to dig through his past, only to wield a weapon to earn his affection. If that was a case, he decided he would no longer tolerate her transgressions with patient indifference. She would cease her pursuit of him, even if he had to do so by force her to.

"What's the meaning of this, Sakura?" he demanded, having arrived at Ichiraku. She was alone, the night was cold, and the sky pitch black.

The girl was somber, quiet, and looked to be shaking as he approached. She closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. She was calm when her eyes opened again, and his gaze met her own. He noticed something curious about her left eye, drawn to it. It was a brilliant green, but that's not what caught his attention. It appeared to be... rippling?

Boiling?

It was if the iris itself was melting away, revealing something else underneath...

He gasped. The emerald green was gone, replaced with a blood red iris orbited by three black tomoe! The eye warped again, and the tomoes exploded outward, forming a strange black and red elliptical pattern that he found he could not look away from.

Then the barriers into his mind were shattered, and everything changed.

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><p>It was but a moment later, and the whole world was different. Konoha was gone. The ground was hard and rough, and the sky was consumed by a bright and beautiful moon that shone vividly overhead.<p>

Sasuke frowned, as he tried to collect himself. He was a little shaken, but was conscious enough to known the night hadn't been this bright a moment before. There should be no moon this time of the month.

He quickly realized he wasn't alone. Sakura was a few short feet away, and there was... someone else... The girl sat on her knees and was bound by a pair of manacles that were strapped to each wrists. Curious. She tugged at them futilely, but they were chained tightly to the cold earth.

Another women was standing over here. She was older then Sakura, perhaps eighteen or nineteen. There was a strong resemblance between the two, and Sasuke wondered if she was a relative of hers, perhaps a sister.

The shackled girl screamed as soon as she caught sight of him, her pretty face contorted in fear. "Sasuke-kun! You have to run! She's me! From the future! She's here to..."

"Hush," the older women interrupted. "He can't run. There's no escaping from this."

So this WAS a trap. Sasuke frowned as he considered the woman. She looked too much like Sakura, sounded too much like her, they were even dressed similarity. It was if she WAS Sakura, only older...

"What's going on?" he demanded. "Where are we?"

"A place where our minds can meet. You've been here before, have you not?" Sakura's doppelganger replied. She raised her arms and gestured at the moonlit sky for emphasis.

Comprehension struck and Sasuke's widened his eyes in fear. No...

"This place..." Sasuke stuttered. Rough memories of Itachi torturing him as a child began to emerge.

His earlier meeting with the younger girl came back to him now, and he remembered the blazing red flash... He made eye contact with this older Sakura look-a-like, and there was no mistake.

Her left eye stored a sharingan, the famous mark and blood line of his clan!

Terror seized him, and he began to babble. "Tsukuyomi! How? Who are you?"

"It is as my younger self said," the woman sighed, too calmly for his liking. "I am from the future. As for this..." she paused, gesturing to the sharingan, "I took it from your corpse."

Sasuke was baffled, speechless; unable to process such an impossibilities. The women began to circle around him, eying him wolfishly as she continued to explain. "Before this eye was mine, it was yours. You took this eye from Itachi, just as I took it from you."

She paused, giving him a moment to adsorb this. Sasuke shook his head, unbelieving. It seemed so unreal. "Time travel?" he finally asked.

"Izanami." She was almost reverent as she breathed the name. "A forbidden Uchiha technique. At the price of one's own soul, those who wield it can craft a new beginning."

"With your Eternal Mangekyou, it was easy to send my soul back. The price is not yet fully paid, but I will be happy to when the time comes."

"She's not... She's not lying," the younger-Sakura stammered, almost too quietly for Sasuke to hear. "She knows things."

He mulled over the information, his mind numb by the ramifications. He had other questions. She had not attacked yet, and despite her use of Tsukuyomi, perhaps she did not mean him harm.

"...What do you want?" he managed. "Why are you doing this?"

She smiled proudly. "I intend to save Naruto, the man I love, from the traitor who killed him." Darkly, she added, "From you."

"Naruto?" Sasuke stammered incredulously, unable to help himself. "Dead last?"

It was silly - the women had just claimed that he would eventually betray his homeland, kill one of his classmates - and the only thing he could focus on was how this beauty in front of him could possibly be in love with Uzumaki Naruto.

He glanced to the younger Sakura chained a few feet away as she mumbled something. Her eyes were downcast, her face flushed red with embarrassment. Or was it shame? He wasn't sure.

"Don't laugh," the woman scolded with a coy smirk. "You all owe him more than you could possible realize."

Sasuke frowned, but the gears in his head began to turn as he considered these impossibilities. If what she claimed was true... In this woman's future, he had betrayed Konoha and killed Naruto - who, believe it or not - was very special to this Sakura. He had killed Itachi as well, and at some point was killed himself. This woman had taken his eye, and used it to travel back in time. Did the Sharingan have this power? He knew a Mangekyou Sharingan could do many things, but could its gaze actually pierce through time itself?

And what about her intentions? Why did she come here? Was she here to warn him of the future? Perhaps persuade him to a different path? Or did she...

"You mean to kill me."

It was the most logical explanation. She clearly inhabited Sakura' young body, and wouldn't have the strength to kill him physically. Choosing genjutsu as her weapon made sense. Tsukuyomi, though... He didn't know how she could bring the eye back with her and not the rest of her body, but the moonlit-genjutsu would be perfect weapon against him. He could kill him with it, and Naruto would survive.

His suspicions were confirmed when the younger Sakura sobbed, tears spilling from her eyes. She had known, and that was why she had told him to run the moment she saw him.

With his survival suddenly on the line, he crushed the terror the was boiling within. He had to gamble and hope that maybe Sakura's Tsukuyomi was not as formidable as Itachi's. He might be able to resist her illusions...

He dashed forward, prepared to snap the pink-haired woman's neck with his hands and break the illusion...

..only to blink and find himself paralyzed. Sakura was now standing elsewhere and he was buried waste-deep in the cold, hard earth. Unable to move, he could do nothing more than glare hatefully as the witch as she took a step towards him. She was indeed mistress of this realm and the blind hope he had mustered a moment ago had all but fizzled

"You can't resist," she said softly, shaking her head. "I'm sorry, its not totally your fault. You could never help but be what Itachi made you to be."

She turned away from him at that, and addressed the little girl cowering on her knees. The young-Sakura was whimpering while pathetically pulling at her manacles. She would be of no help to him.

"The burden I'm leaving with you will be heavy one, Sakura," she consoled her younger-self. "You must endure it."

"I'm sorry, I would not have had you watch this if I could help it," she continued. "This last doujustsu will consume what little time my soul has left, and I will fade with the future I left behind." The women seemed happy, eerily content for someone who claimed she was about about to cease to exist.

"Sasuke," the woman murmured and turned to him once more. She had formed a hand-seal and her sharingan blazed alight. He found he could not look away as her the eye inverted on itself and began to slowly spin. The world around them – along with the younger-Sakura – vanished, replaced with pure whiteness.

His feet were no longer pinned, but just as he thought he could move again, an intense numbness overtook his body. He looked down at his arms and was shocked to see them... peeling... No, not, peeling... Fluttering. Dissolving, into cherry blossoms of all things.

He stared back up at Sakura in horror. She was frozen in here stance, but the same pink blossoms that were engulfing him were swarming around her as well. He watched as the petals fluttered off of her, as clumps of her being simply vanished from her body.

A realization struck him... She had said that her soul would be consumed by the doujutsu, so did this mean he was going to share her fate? Would he not only die, but simply cease to be as she eroded both their souls?

"What is this?"

"Freedom," she explained, her voice sad. "And also... Oblivion. I'm sorry, Sasuke. I've failed Naruto too many times in my life. I won't waste this chance."

The finality of such a fate rocked him. He'd be gone, his mission unfulfilled and his loved ones unavenged, with no one to even remember them. He pictured each of his family. He found as his thoughts turned to them, his mind was drawn away, as if every one of them was fading into blossoms just as he was. Thoughts of his grandfather, cousins, mother and father... simply dissolved, until only image of Itachi and his black smile remained... and even that had began to unravel. He tried desperately to cling to that hatred, to hold onto some small sense of himself, before he lost it all and was scattered in the wind.

_Please! _his mind cried out, finding he could no longer speak. It was a vain and silent plea for mercy, but Sakura's face remained a cold, emotionless mask, determined to punish him for crimes he had not yet committed.

She too was almost gone as she dissolved into blossom petals, until only the sharingan remained... spinning...Slowly and cruelly...

He reached out his hands, hoping for something, ANYTHING, to reach back. Nothing did, and his finger tips numbed and dissolved in a haze of blossoms and petals.

And then he felt nothing at all.

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><p>It was a mystery to all involved. The boy had been found lying unconscious in the village streets and would not awaken. There was no sign of attack or injury, but he was immediately brought to Konoha Hospital anyways. He slumbered there for six days, and in that time he was visited by his classmates.<p>

They left gifts and flowers; the sorts of things you would leave a friend struck by illness, though none who visited could truly claim friendship with him. In particular, a pretty pink-haired girl lingered the most, most somber of all who visited.

On the seventh day, he awoke. The nurses attending him asked him all sorts of questions, as they needed to know what happened to properly treat him. How did he come to be lying in the streets? Was he attacked? Or did he simply pass out? Not knowing any of the answers, the boy was his silent as he struggled to find his bearings.

"Uchiha-san," the nurse repeated again firmly, interrupting his pondering. "Do you know what happened? It's important to-"

"Where..." the boy began, cutting her off, though he struggled to find the right question to ask. He thought about it for a moment, and suddenly felt very scared as he realized something was wrong. Very wrong. 'Where' was not the question. No... "Who..."

"Who am I?" the boy sobbed, realizing he did not know.

End.

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><p><strong>Story Notes<strong>

Sasuke's a dip. I hate him, but I hate character bashing more. This was the kindest thing I think I could do for him: to free him from his past. Sakura, though? I love Sakura. She's such a fantastically flawed character early on, but has some strong redeeming qualities that cause her to grow into a real badass. She ultimately doesn't have it in her to kill Sasuke, but there's a strong part in her that realizes she probably should.

**Author Notes**

This is just a one shot for now, unfortunately. I am in the insanely fortunate position of being able to write for a living, and I really shouldn't be wasting my personal writing time on fanfics. Still, they're a fun, no-pressure sort of writing that make for a nice distraction. Sometimes I really do need that vacation from work-writing where I can bang away and not agonize about things like passive voice and tenses and just be as sloppy as I want.

But! But! I do plan on eventually doing another one-shot. Sasuke's story is done, but I want to explore the fallout with young-Sakura's perspective, and how she deals with the fallout of her older self's actions and the insight that was forced upon her, especially where a loud blonde kid is concerned.

If you want that follow up one-shot, please leave reviews. I am powered entirely by my own ego, so I suggest you feed it!


	2. Preview

Preface: This is a preview to a sequel to 'Freedom.' I actually hoped to be finished it by now, but it's proving a little more difficult and lengthy than I first thought. My plan is to whittle away on it now in spare moments, but to tide people over here's a preview!

It'll be a three parter that I'll post it as a separate story when it's finally done, so if you want to be alerted, an author alert is the way to go.

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><p>"Sakura-honey?"<p>

I sighed. It was my mother.

"Mmmph," I acknowledged her with with a moan, face-down in my pillow. Wasn't really in the mood to deal with her. With anything, really.

"Are you alright?"

"Mmmph."

"I just spoke Inochi-san at the flower shop," my mom began, ignoring my non-committal grunts. "He told me that your friend Sasuke has awakened."

I perked up almost immediately. "He is?" He was a awake? So... he wasn't brain dead? "Is he alright?" I shuffled up so I was sitting in bed and flipped the light on in at my dresser. I probably looked horrible, but I needed to hear this.

"He is, but Inochi-san said he was all out of sorts," my mother replied. "He said it was amnesia. He can't remember who he is."

Amnesia? The can't remember anything kind? So that's what my future-self had meant. Did she show mercy last minute, or was that her plan all along?

"He doesn't have any family, and Inochi thought he could use a friendly face. You and Ino-chan should visit him," my mother offered. "You know... Get of out bed."

Oh. That was her angle.

It had been a week since the incident, and any time when I wasn't studying or training at the Academy I spent moping in my room. She didn't actually care a fig about Sasuke and had no reason to, but she was worried about me. I suppose my mother figured with my crush on him, that I was for bedroom-cowering out of worry.

She had no idea. No one did.

"...Maybe." I replied meekly as she left. I had visited him while he was in a coma, but the truth was now that he was awake, I intended to avoid Sasuke-kun at all costs. Oh, don't get me wrong, I was thrilled he was well enough for 'friendly faces,' but that person was not me. I had failed him in every conceivable way. He didn't need trash like me in his life after what happened...

The incident... It was so surreal, and if Sasuke-kun wasn't currently recovering in the hospital from the ordeal, I'd question if it really happened.

Just a week ago, I woke to find myself terrified as my own body refused to obey my commands. It was soon apparent an intruder had possessed my body and I was forced to sit back and watch.

The woman who invaded me was... something else. She spoke to me the entire time, explaining her plans, making eccentric and fantastical claims as she went. She maintained that she was actually 'me' from the future, and that she had used a time jutsu to travel back seven years in the past. That she was on a mission, one to kill a traitor who would one day murder her... her person. Her precious person.

_Don't say his name._

I didn't believe her at first, and was convinced she was an enemy assassin, who was using my body to infiltrate the village. The more she told me, however, it was clear the theory wouldn't add up. She knew way too many things to just be some enemy nin. She knew a lot of secrets and tossed them around like candy, and they all made too much sense to be lies.

So I started to believe her. Sorta. It got me through the day, at least. What my elder-self didn't tell me was the traitor she was actually targeting was a fellow student. Worse...

It was Sasuke-kun.

I couldn't believe it and only realized what she intended when she started charging up the strange eye-genjutsu she had on her. Nothing I did could even hinder her, and when her final genjutsu went off, it blew both her and Sasuke away.

When I found myself in control again a moment later, Sasuke's body was on the ground in front of me... I ran for home, and passed out.

When woke the next day, I learned Sasuke was hospitalized and in a sort of a coma. No one knew what happened, and ashamed as the incident left me, I was too terrified of reprisal to tell anyone. The future-Sakura had hinted there was a conspiracy and distrust surrounding Sasuke's clan, and I best kept my nose out of it...

I sighed to myself. What mattered was Sasuke-kun was alive. The fact he was left with amnesia instead lent a lot more meaning to the future-Sakura's final words, the ones she whispered to me before she faded away.

"Now... now he's free. Take care of them both."

Both. One was Sasuke-kun. The other was...

_Don't say his name._

Part of me was forced to acknowledge it really was an elegant solution. If revenge really was what would turn Sasuke against the Leaf somehow, robbing him of his motivation to do so would avert it. Who goes on quests of revenge for people they don't know?

Still, to rob him of his past was a monstrously cruel act in itself. He survived, sure, but that shouldn't absolve me of my shame. That any version of myself would be ruthless enough to do such a thing... And that I had failed to to protect Sasuke-kun from it...

And I claimed to love him?

Ugh.

I had tried to fight her, I really did. She was in control, but the whole sharing-a-brain thing left us linked in a weird way. I found we were able to project our feelings on to each other and I tried to use that to fight back by bombarding her with my own emotions. I hoped that I could use them to appeal to her... well, nostalgia, I guess. We did share a past at some point.

I tried to convince her that Sasuke-kun didn't have to die, and now that we knew, we could avert his betrayal. It did very little to move her, and she was certain that Sasuke would pursue revenge at all costs. To emphasize her point, she smacked me with a memory so vicious that it left a hole in my heart.

_..."My goal is to crush the Leaf!" Sasuke declares proudly. A moment later, he narrowly misses skewering her with some sort of raiton jutsu. He's raving now, about his lost family, of all those he'll murder to make it right. It's a long list. The cold hatred of his chakra can be felt by all, a grinning demon beings to manifest around him, burning with a black fire... _

That had hurt. The hatred... I could feel the cold-hate coming off of him as if I was there. It just left me filled with so much doubt, and I couldn't help but wonder if I misjudged Sasuke-kun. Was the cool-calm he exuded actually something much more sinister?

Still, I had to keep trying, I loved him, right? I hit her again, and the second time with the full force of my feelings for Sasuke-kun.

In retrospect, I really wish I hadn't.

She fired back everything she had, hammering me with more of her memories, this time wrapped in intense feelings. Visions of sunny smiles, first kisses, happy moments, pledges of devotion, promises broken and promises kept, blanketed in the simple feeling of loving and being loved back, and topped off with the crushing despair of losing it all.

I never really had a chance, did I? I was truly defeated in that moment. My lov- No... My crush. My school girl crush. It couldn't hope to compare with what she felt and was smashed to pieces by her own very real and intense love for... Well, it wasn't for Sasuke. She was me, but loved someone else...

Someone I was pretty sure I despised.

_Don't say his name!_

It was most enlightening and humiliating moment of my life so far. She broke me with just the conviction of her feelings, and used the opportunity to casually sweep me aside and fire off her eye-jutsu. The ruthless bitch. I don't care if it meant hating my self in a weird way, but I hated her!

Life was... simpler. And she ruined it.

**'Did she? Maybe she saved it,' **a voice inside me disagreed. My inner-self was getting more obnoxious since the incident. **'Maybe she showed you how tough you need to become!'**

_'You shut up!' _I snapped back at myself, though I realized I was being defiant just for the sake of it.. _'I hope I don't ever grow up to become her.'_

**'You're lying. You admire her,' **my inner-voice protested, and I realized she had a point. In many ways, the Future-Sakura represented the beautiful and dangerous kunoichi that I dreamed of one day becoming. Part of me was dreading the day I might reach her level, while another was excited for it.

**'She was badass! Nothing stopped her!'** my Inner-voice went on, exuberantly. **She broke time it self to save her man! To save Naru-**

_Don't say his name! _

I screamed at her, but it was too late. At his mention, one of the memories the witch inflicted on me bubbled up and...

_...The two entwined together in pleasure, the eve of the final battle. "Sakura-chan..." he whispered breathlessly into her ear..._

I buried my head into my bed, my blankets muffling my embarrassed wail.

Don't think about Naruto! Stop thinking! Suppress! Suppress!

**'But it's so HOT!'** my Inner-voice protested.

_'Shuutuuuuuup!'_ I whined, trying to smother myself with the pillow.

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><p>will be continued, promise.<p> 


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